her father’s love but getting only cool silence.
No, she wasn’t beautiful and perfect, and she wasn’t decisive. She hated crowds, and she hated pretending she fit in when everyone knew she didn’t. She was a failure.
She wanted to go home, back to her small cottage at Salvatore and Teresa’s country estate, back to her books and her garden. She loved getting her fingers in the dirt, loved creating something beautiful from nothing more than soil and water and seeds. It gave her hope somehow that she wasn’t as inconsequential as she always felt.
Useless. Fat and mousy and weak.
Lia turned and fled through the same door Rosa had stormed out of. This was it. The final straw in her long, tortured life as a Corretti. She was finished pretending to fit in.
She meant to go to her room, but instead she marched out through the courtyard and found herself standing in front of the swimming pool.
There was no one in it tonight. The hotel had been overrun with wedding guests, and they were all at the reception. The air was hot, and the blue water was so clear, the pool lit from below with soft lights. For a moment Lia thought of jumping in with her dress on. It would ruin the stupid thing, but she hardly cared.
She stood there for a long time, hot feelings swelling within her. She wanted to be decisive. Brave. She wanted to make her own decisions, and she didn’t want to let anyone make her feel inferior or unneeded ever again.
She took a step closer to the edge of the pool, staring down into the depths of the water. It would ruin her dress, her shoes, her hair.
So what?
For the first time in a long time, she was going to do what she wanted. She was going to step into the pool and ruin her dress, and she damn well didn’t care. She was going to wash away the pain of the day and emerge clean. A new, determined Lia.
Before she could change her mind, she kicked off her shoes and stepped over the edge, letting the water take her down. It closed over her head so peacefully, shutting out all the sounds from above. Shutting out the pain and anger, the humiliation of this day.
She didn’t fight it, didn’t kick or struggle. She was a strong swimmer, and she wasn’t afraid. She just let the water take her down to the bottom, where everything was still. She’d only sit here a moment, and then she’d kick to the top again.
Above her, she heard some kind of noise. And then the water rippled as someone leaped into the pool with her. It annoyed her. She wasn’t finished being quiet and still.
Guests from the reception, no doubt. Drunk and looking for a good time.
Lia started to kick upward again, her solace interrupted now. She would get out of the pool and drag her sodden body back to her room. But her dress was heavier than she’d thought, twisting around her legs and pulling her back down again.
She kicked harder, but got nowhere. And then she realized with a sinking feeling that the suction of the drain had trapped part of her skirt. Panic bloomed inside her as she kicked harder.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She couldn’t cry for help, couldn’t do anything but try to rip herself out of the pink mess.
The dress didn’t want to come off. Her lungs ached. Any minute and they would burst.
She kicked harder—but she was caught by her own folly.
No, by Carmela’s folly, she thought numbly. Carmela’s folly of a dress. Wouldn’t everyone laugh when they discovered her bloated body in the pool tomorrow?
Poor, pitiful, stupid Lia. She’d been decisive, all right. She’d made a decision that was going to kill her. She wondered if her mother had thought the same thing in those seconds when her car had hung suspended over the cliffs before plunging onto the rocks below… .
CHAPTER TWO
LIA WOKE SLOWLY. She coughed, her throat and chest aching as she did so. She remembered being in the pool, remembered her dress getting caught. She pushed herself up on an elbow. She was in a darkened room. She sat upright, and the sheet slid down her body. How had she gotten out of the pool? And why was she naked? She didn’t remember going back to her room, didn’t remember anything but that last moment where she’d thought of the Correttis finding her pink-clad body trapped at the bottom of the pool.
She pushed the sheet back, intending to get out of the bed, but a movement in the darkness arrested her.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep male voice said.
Lia grabbed the sheet and yanked it back up. How long had he been standing there?
“Who are you? And why are you in my room?”
His laugh was dry. “I’m Zach. And you’re in my room, sugar.”
Sugar. “You’re American,” she said, her heart thumping steadily. The same American as earlier?
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“You sound disappointed.”
She shook her head, stopping when her brain couldn’t quite keep up. She felt light-headed, as if she’d been drinking, when she hadn’t had more than a single glass of champagne all evening.
“How did I get here?”
“I carried you.”
“Impossible,” she scoffed. She was tall and awkward and fat. He couldn’t have done it without a cart and a team of horses to pull her.
“Clearly not,” he told her. “Because you’re here.”
“But why?” The last thing she remembered was water and darkness.
Wait, that wasn’t right. There’d also been light, a hard surface under her back and the scalding taste of chlorine in her throat.
“Because you begged me not to call anyone when I pulled you out of the pool.”
She vaguely recalled it. She remembered that she’d been worried about anyone seeing her, about them laughing and pointing. About Carmela standing there, slim arms folded, evil face twisted in a smirk, nodding and laughing … fat and mousy and weak.
“It was the only thing you said. Repeatedly,” he added, and Lia wanted to hide.
She put a hand to her head. Her hair was still damp, though not soaked. And she was naked. Utterly, completely naked. Her face flamed.
He sat beside her on the bed, holding out a glass of water. “Here, take this,” he said, his voice gentle.
She looked up, met his gaze—and her heart skipped several beats in a row. It was the same man. He had dark eyes, a hard jaw and the beginnings of a scruff where he hadn’t shaved in hours. His hair was cropped short, almost military style, and his lips were just about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life.
She
